Mavericks’ Rondo to return, but Parsons questionable for Suns game

Point guard Rajon Rondo practiced Tuesday and will be in the starting lineup Wednesday when the Dallas Mavericks host the Phoenix Suns at 8:30 p.m. at American Airlines Center.

However, small forward Chandler Parsons did not practice and is still listed as day-to-day with a swollen right knee. Meanwhile, backup small forward Richard Jefferson, who coach Rick Carlisle said is doing better, went through a portion of Tuesday’s practice session after also sitting out Monday’s practice with a jammed toe.

Rondo missed Monday’s practice after hyperextending his left knee in Saturday’s game against the Golden State Warriors.

“I feel OK,” said Rondo, who went through the entire practice session on Tuesday. “I was able to move a little bit today.”

The Mavericks, who clinched a playoff spot Tuesday with Oklahoma City’s loss, hope to have all hands on deck for their final five regular-season games. With Rondo — and Jefferson in a limited role — on the floor Tuesday, they certainly were able to accomplish more than they were able to Monday with a limited roster.

“Because we had a lot of guys missing [Monday] we didn’t do most of the contact stuff,” Carlisle said. “[Tuesday] we did a lot of competitive stuff.”

Carlisle wants his team to be better at pushing the ball up the floor than it has been in recent weeks. It’s the backbone of their offense.

“We’ve got to work at it, we’ve got to commit to running the floor,” Carlisle said. “A lot of it has to do with assignments and making sure that everyone’s accountable for what they’re supposed to do.

“This time of the year you’ve really got to get into competing. We’ve got to get better with our transition defense, we’ve got to get better with our running game. We worked on that stuff today and we made some progress.”

Rondo explained that the Mavericks’ defense is at the forefront of whether the team is going to have any sustained success pushing the ball up the floor at a breakneck pace.

“If you look at the past couple of games or even the past month, when we get stops we’re able to run,” Rondo said. “And when we don’t [get stops] it slows down our pace, it slows with the guys taking the ball out [of bounds] slowly, and it just makes us go into a half-court team.

“So it all starts with defense, and we’ll continue to work on our defensive schemes and strategies to get stops.”

Mavs scouting

The Mavericks’ scouting operations is stretched thin these days because the’s first-round playoff opponent hasn’t been determined.

Houston, Memphis, San Antonio, Portland and the Los Angeles Clippers are in contention for the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference that will face the Mavericks in the opening round. That has forced the Mavericks to scout all of the possible opponents.

“Our scouts are very busy,” Carlisle said. “I’m looking at film on everybody. We’ve played all these teams, so we have film from our games. It’s beginning to take more shape in the next couple or three days, and we’ll see where things are at.”

The Mavericks won’t publicly say who they would prefer to play, but sources said they match up best against the Rockets.

This story was originally published April 7, 2015 at 9:34 PM with the headline "Mavericks’ Rondo to return, but Parsons questionable for Suns game."